🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward formula. It frequently serves as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the biggest resurgence wins the prize. However, it fuels an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or just the most shocking shock.

Yet the latest race is fundamentally unique. The group of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division champions falling away and longtime strugglers ascending together. During an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a turbulent and thrilling season, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot could shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to create big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the immense pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this isn't a typical campaign!

Where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. But he falls short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and experience, he trusted newbies. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year case has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still